


The Lost Generation

by enerra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Is Trying, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sex Pollen, Steve is trying, but it's not as fun as it should be, natasha doesn't have to try, so spoiler alert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enerra/pseuds/enerra
Summary: Steve’s fingers tightened on Bucky’s ankle, then loosened. “Maybe you better wait over there.”“Why?”“Do you remember Antwerp?”“No,” Bucky said.“What a mess,” Steve said. “Dum Dum. Thank God for that nice Belgian dame.”“And the Devil for that not-so-nice one,” Bucky said, the memory snapping back into place like a puzzle piece. “Jesus.”“Yeah,” Steve said, licking his lips. “Yeah. It’s kind of like that.”





	The Lost Generation

“Inside the joint between the breastplate and the left arm,” Widow said over the coms. “There’s a red wire. If you disconnect it it will depower the entire unit.”

The Soldier grunted and made a fist with his left hand. The air was thick with smoke and what smelled like transmission fluid, probably from the Hummer. A meter away, the bot was trying to regain its feet. It was barely functioning. That was impressive. Things didn’t normally continue to function after the Soldier used his left hand on them. Maybe he had to start a new list for the new arm.

The Soldier, not to be outdone, began to peel himself out of the Hummer’s chassis. He got about halfway. When he turned his head to take stock, he saw his left arm had been enveloped almost entirely by the rear passenger side door, the metal folded around it from the force of impact. The droid levered three meters upright in a purr of machinery and took a step towards him. The Soldier yanked. His arm stayed. The bot took another step, then rocked back. It tried to move again. There was a grinding noise instead: its right foot was trapped in between a pickup truck and the base of a traffic light. Bucky sagged in relief.

“Not so fucking great now, are you,” Bucky said. “Big robot, little city streets. What kind of idiot designed you, anyway?”

The bot turned towards the obstruction, gears whirring. It made made a twanging sound, then raised its arm and swung, dissolving a nearby BMW Z4 neatly into component parts and clipping a Dumpster on the way. The Dumpster went tumbling through a plate glass window. The second swing sent the pickup after the Dumpster. The Soldier grunted and redoubled his efforts to escape the H3 he was currently decorating. The bot whirred inquiringly and turned back towards him.

“I didn’t mean it,” Bucky told it. “More like what kind of idiot designed this fucking hunk of junk I’m carrying around, right?”

The Soldier dug his heels in and pulled. The tires of the Hummer squealed on the asphalt, but the metal around his arm didn’t give. His com chimed, a private channel opening up.

“Bucky,” said another entry in a short list of things that continued to function after the Soldier had used his left hand on them. “You okay? What’s going on?”

“Just finishing up, Cap,” he said.

The Soldier planted his feet and pulled. The H3 rocked up onto two wheels, then settled back down onto four with a rusty sigh. His arm stayed entombed. Shit. The Soldier evaluated. He could pull it out, but it would do more damage to his arm than it was worth. Better to eliminate the bot and wait for someone to cut him out. The robot reached down to prise up a manhole cover. The Soldier ducked, and the cover skipped right through the front windows, shearing off an inch of the Soldier’s hair and the top of a fire hydrant across the street. A geyser erupted from it, dousing the Winter Soldier in frigid, metallic-tasting water.

“Great,” he said.

Time to end this. The .357 should do it. The Soldier felt for his back holster with the weak hand. It was empty. He patted around and came up with a knife. Four inches of carbon alloy against two and a half meters of killing machine. The Soldier brandished it. The robot picked up a bumper, the largest piece left of the BMW.

“Fine,” Bucky said. “So yours is bigger. Who cares. I’ll still kick your ass.”

The bot ducked down to step under a series of power lines. The Soldier pressed back against the car and set his tongue behind his teeth. The robot raised the bumper. At the the apex of its swing, which would turn the Soldier into yet another grease stain under the H3, he threw the knife. It thunked into a transformer. A sparking power line fell down. It settled on the bot’s upraised arm. The bot froze, the shadow of the bumper falling across the Soldier. The grinding sound came again. The whole bot began to jitter in an electric jig. Smoke poured from the cracks in the plate armor. The transformer on the pole blew with a loud pop. The bumper clanged to the ground.

“What was that?” Steve said.

“Nothin’,” Bucky said, dragging the Hummer six inches sideways on his next attempt to free his arm. Yeah, he was definitely going to have to get cut out of this one. The bot was juddering back to life, pincers closing around the bumper again. “How ‘bout you, you good?”

“Sure,” Steve said. He was out of breath. The sound made Bucky oddly nostalgic. “You know me. Got ‘em on the ropes.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Bucky said. Change of plans. He pulled his torso out of the dent in the passenger door, planted a foot on the beat-up yellow metal and wrenched. The door came off the car at the hinges with a squeal and the smell of an electrical fire. The last one might be his arm. The Soldier let the door fall, then put both feet on either side of his trapped hand and pulled up. The arm came free with a crunch and a blurt of static inside his head, in the place where the pressure receptors told him how hard he was squeezing.

He flexed his fingers. Only the thumb, index, and middle one responded.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” he said.

“Language,” Hawkeye said, gleefully.

“That’s not funny anymore,” Falcon said.

“You’re just mad you’re weren’t there for the original inside joke,” Hawkeye said. “I still think it’s funny.”

“Shut up, Barton. Barnes,” Falcon said, calm. The Soldier listened when Sam had that tone. Shit, Steve listened when he had that tone. “You’ve got another robot on your six. I tagged it with an explosive but it ripped off the detonator.”

“Confirmed,” the Soldier said. There was a scream of metal behind him.

“Left armpit,” Widow said. She paused, and there was the chatter of firearms. “Red wire. Cut it.”

“Confirmed,” the Soldier said and vaulted onto a crushed silver minivan. The robot raised its weapon at the sound, opening fire. The Soldier raised his broken left hand, a bullet pinging off of it, and hit the chestplate feet first. The thing rocked back, but didn’t fall. He scrambled up its chest, hooking his knee around its neck. It swatted at him, a line of pain opening down his right flank. The Soldier gritted his teeth and pulled out his last knife. There, a gap in the plates. Not big enough to get into. He’d have to widen it somehow. Prise it up with the knife?

Steve grunted over the coms, a sound the Soldier had heard before. A pain-grunt.

He clamped his other leg around the things neck, reared back, and rammed his entire hand through the gap. The alloy plates caved around his hand like wet cardboard, something electric vibrating in his teeth. He clenched the fingers that were still working around the innards of the joint and yanked. A fistful of wire came back out. The robot gave him one more jerky slap, and the Soldier lost the horizon in the cascading sound of breaking glass, but he kept his hand closed.

He blinked back into consciousness facedown on the sidewalk, his leg inches away from an encroaching puddle of oil. He still had a handful of wire. He squinted at it. There, a red one. Perfect. Bucky spat out a mouthful of blood and rolled away from the puddle. The uniform was an absolute bitch to clean. He really didn’t feel like taking it in for dry cleaning.

“Did you cut the wire?” Widow said.

“Sort of.” Bucky tried to unclench his fist. The thumb eased upright with a little jerk, then the middle finger. Bucky snorted. The index was gone, frayed wires sticking out at the knuckle.

“Bucky,” Steve said urgently in his ear. “You okay? That didn’t sound — ugh!”

“Cap?” Falcon said.

“Some of them appear to have chemical weapons,” Steve said, and sneezed. “Aerosol. Don’t let them get close.”

“I’m coming,” the Soldier said. The outline of the second droid appeared up the street. A gun-arm variant. It raised its weapon. The Soldier dove behind the engine block, listening to projectiles snick off of it. He could see the hulk of the bot he’d just killed, just off the wheel of the H3.

“Barnes, I got you,” Hawkeye said. “Stay where you are. You’re boxed in. I can see Sam’s tag. I’ll set it off with an arrow, but I have to relocate to get the shot. Give me two minutes. Stay under cover.”

“Anyone got eyes on Cap?” the Soldier said.

“No,” Falcon said. “He’s under an overpass, I’m trying to get there.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said. There was the sound of shattering brick in the back, the high-pitched ringing of whatever he was using as a shield today hitting something hard. He grunted again.

“Negative, Hawkeye,” the Soldier said, and grabbed the foot of the dead droid as well as he could with about a third of a hand. It came off in his hand, crumpled under his grip. Pressure sensors were totally shot. He darted out from behind the Hummer, did a little discus windup, and aimed for the blinking explosive stuck on its chest. The shockwave threw him straight back into the car.

“Okay, I got — Cap! Stay — no!” Falcon shouted. “I lost him, he’s heading south. He had a crowd.” There was the sound of gunfire over his com. “I’m pinned down. Someone else has to go, he needs backup.”

The Soldier ripped the com out of his ear. The city’s glass-fronted buildings and straight streets were excellent conductors of sound. He could hear the sounds of two distinct fights: one left, one straight ahead. He closed his eyes. The chatter of Widow’s Glocks came from straight ahead. 

The Solider turned left and broke into a sprint, jamming the com back into his ear. He skidded around a corner. There he was, twenty meters up the street. Today’s shield was something that looked like a melted manhole cover.

Steve was a blur of navy in the center of a ring of dismembered bots, fighting in a little arena made of debris. Bucky counted six (and a… third?) decommissioned bots strewn around him with a low whistle. Right now he was fighting three of them at once, an insane pinball game with the shield and his body and what looked like a shard of a telephone pole. It was glorious, violent art. He had lost the helmet somewhere along the way, and his hair was golden in the slanting sun. The right angle of his jaw was highlighted by the way he clenched it when he fought.

Bucky had seventy years experience of looking past it. Steve was doing it all left-handed, his right arm hanging by his side, a trickle of blood bright in his blond hair. His movements were delayed. Concussed? Poisoned? The metabolism took care of most drugs, but Bucky didn’t like to assume. He raised his pilfered gun and put his finger on the trigger, but there was no way to fire without hitting Steve. Inside the circle, Steve whipped the makeshift shield at one bot, hitting it in the chest. It flew back into an alley, out of sight. The cover hit the sidewalk with a sound like a gong and rolled back towards Steve.

He didn’t pick it up.

Bucky broke into a dead run. One of the two remaining bots lunged forward. Steve stumbled backwards. His foot caught on the curb, ungraceful like he never had been, even before the Change, and he keeled over behind an overturned hot dog cart. The robot crouched down over Steve just as Bucky came into range. Bucky tore the thing’s head off with a brutal crunch, and then its left arm. His hand hurt piercingly, then ceased to feel anything at all. One down. The other bot was hung up on a streetlight, at least thirty seconds away. Bucky dropped the gun and went to his knees, reaching for Steve.

“Cap,” he said, and then something cold and hard closed around his chest like a vice. Bucky snatched at the gun but it was out of reach. The ground fell away. Fuck, he’d forgotten the bot in the alley.

“Cap, report,” Bucky wheezed, his feet kicking in midair. He could see Steve in between them, a crumpled blue figure. Bucky’s hands were trapped against his sides. He flexed, his traps screaming, but the grip was implacable. The second bot advanced on Steve, who was on all fours, head down.

“Cap!”

“I can’t — not — what —” Steve said.

“Let me go, you oversized tin can,” Bucky said to the bot holding him, getting one hand free. He reached out and started bashing at the left armpit with his frozen fist. It transferred him to its right hand and began to squeeze. The damned things were learning. Bucky’s ribs creaked. He raised his elbow and started driving it down onto its wrist. Something cracked, and the pressure relented by a hair, enough to talk.

“Cap, you okay?” he called.

Steve didn’t respond. The other robot had gotten untangled. It shoved the hot dog cart out of the way, rising up over Steve.

“Steve, get up,” Bucky shouted, twisting uselessly eight feet up. He’d get up. Steve always got up. If he did anything, ever, it was get back up. “Get up!”

Steve dropped to his elbows and didn’t get up and didn’t get up. The bot holding Bucky had a third gun arm. It lifted to his face. Bucky tore that off, too, his arm sparking. The bot standing over Steve uprooted a streetlight and gave it a testing swing, eliminating half of the local bodega. Steve groaned and rolled over onto his back.

“Get up,” Bucky shouted, beating the bot holding him with its own arm. “Stevie, you gotta get up!”

“Unh,” Steve groaned. He wasn’t getting up. The robot standing over him raised both arms up, the pole centered on Steve. Bucky heard himself make a high hurt noise, fear and pain, the noise the Soldier made around the mouthguard right before they flipped the breaker.

Steve raised his head. “Buck?”

“Shield!” Bucky roared.

Steve flung the cover up just in time to catch the blow. The shield rang, bending under the pole, but didn’t give. The bot whirred in displeasure and raised the pole again. Bucky jammed the arm he’d torn off of the thing holding him into its armpit. It went straight through. The bot dropped him, then died. A second blow rang out. Steve’s shield folded in half. It wouldn’t last through a third. The Soldier hit the final bot at the knees. He slammed it onto its back next to Steve, then reared up and ripped the entire chestplate off like he was opening a can of tuna. The static in his head peaked and then disappeared, his arm swinging heavy and lifeless by his side. 

He struggled to his feet, fighting to maintain his balance, which was always off when the arm was dead. The bot crunched into a crouched position over them, swaying, wires dangling from its exposed chest cavity. The Soldier got a foot on either side of Steve’s prone body and snarled. The bot whirred in middle C and groped for the pole. The Soldier pulled out his knife. 

The bot swung weakly, then toppled over, the light going from its eyes. It powered down in a slow jumble, piece by piece. Bucky turned to Steve before it finished. He became aware of Falcon shouting in his ear.

“Barnes! Did you find Cap? Is he okay?”

“He’s alive,” Bucky said to shut him up. “I’m assessing him now.”

Steve still had half his shield over him. When Bucky wrapped his hands around the edge Steve threw a drunken punch. He missed by about a foot.

“Hey, hey, it’s me,” Bucky said.

“…Bucky?”

“Yeah.”

Steve let go of the shield.

“You okay?”

“I’m not sure,” Steve said, which was code for ‘fuck no.’

“Concussion? Drugs?”

“I feel…” Steve said. He trailed off and shivered. Drugs. Bucky crouched and put his hand on Steve’s bare throat, over his carotid. Pulse steady, a little fast. Steve moaned, the vibrations traveling up through Bucky’s palm. Bucky tried not to think about it. Steve’s skin was very soft and very hot. Bucky touched his forehead. Fever. He tapped his com.

“I need immediate pickup,” Bucky said into the coms. “Steve got sprayed with something, he’s sick.”

“Headed to your coordinates now,” Widow said. “Arrival in T-minus two minutes. What is his condition.”

“Responsive but feverish.” Steve’s eyes were closed, spots of red burning high in his cheeks. Bucky stroked his flesh thumb under his right eye, over his cheekbone. Steve’s eyes slitted open. They glowed a warm blue in the light of the setting sun, but they were dark, hazy. “Pupils dilated,” he added. “Cap. How’s the arm?”

“Dislocated,” Steve said. “Fix it? I hate when the tendons heal before it goes back in the socket.”

“Alright,” Bucky said. He knew the drill. He crouched and grabbed Steve’s massive forearm. He bent it to a right angle, then slid down to grasp his elbow. “On the count of three.”

“I know you’re gonna pull on one,” Steve said. “You always pull on one. What’s the point of pretending?”

“One…two…three,” Bucky said.

“You didn’t pull,” Steve said.

“You’re not as smart as you think you are, Rogers,” Bucky said and pulled. There was a satisfying pop. Steve cried out.

“God,” Steve said, panting. “Jesus Christ, that felt good.”

“I get that a lot,” Bucky said, and stood up to survey the scene, discreetly adjusting his pants. They were alone. He couldn’t hear any more bots, only the strange thumping rhythm of the Wakandan airship in the distance. He still smelled an electrical fire. He sniffed his shoulder.

Steve wrapped a warm palm around his ankle, just above the cuff of Bucky’s boot. He was breathing hard. “I need…”

“Anything, pal,” Bucky said. Steve’s hips lifted, then settled, like he was uncomfortable. He rubbed a thumb over the knob of Bucky’s ankle.

“It feels really good to touch you,” he said.

“Well,” Bucky said. His tongue felt too large for his mouth. “Uh, any time. Just say the word.”

“Do you mind if I just… hold on?”

“Sure, yeah. No problem,” Bucky said. He could let Steve feel up his ankle. He could do that.

“I feel empty,” Steve said.

“You’re going to be okay,” Bucky said, thinking of the cold. How he’d wanted anything to fill him up, warm him up, to keep the darkness away. Steve had felt it, too. Maybe the drug was making him remember. “Romanoff is coming to take us back. Wakanda has the best med facilities in the world. I can attest to that. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Not that kind of empty,” Steve said.

“Lot of people who care about you there, too,” Bucky said, thinking of another type of cold. “And —” he laughed, a touch self-deprecatingly. “Well. There’s always me.”

“Not that kind, either — well, I mean, yeah, sometimes — but right now I want…” Steve’s fingers tightened on Bucky’s ankle, then loosened. “Maybe you better wait over there.”

“Why?”

“Do you remember Antwerp?”

“No,” Bucky said.

“What a mess,” Steve said. “Dum Dum. Thank God for that nice Belgian dame.”

“And the Devil for that not-so-nice one,” Bucky said, the memory snapping back into place like a puzzle piece. “Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, licking his lips. “Yeah. It’s kind of like that.”

“When you say empty,” Bucky began. No. Nope. He cut that line of thinking off at the pass.

“Widow,” he said, opening a private line. “Cap just brought up a time that a friend of ours got the Spanish fly during the war.”

“Really,” Widow said.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He looked down at Steve’s crotch, and his mouth flooded with saliva.

There was a pause.

“Understood,” Widow said. “T-minus-one.”

“Hurry the fuck up,” he said, and cut communications.

“Bucky,” Steve said, hoarse.

“Oh my god,” Hawkeye said. “Are you guys fucking right now? At least close the com. Ew.”

“The only way I don’t kill you, Barton, is if Cap gets there first,” Bucky said, closing the open channel. He pulled Steve’s com out of his ear and stepped on it before Steve said something more incriminating.

“Can you — I need you to —” Steve said, eyes fixed on his, his mouth parted and wet.

“Shut up, Steve,” Bucky said. “For the love of God and all that is holy, please shut up.”

Steve cringed. “I don’t think I can,” he said. “Don’t you have a gag or something?”

“No,” Bucky said. “No, Jesus. No.”

“This is bad,” Steve said, licking his lips again.

“I don’t know what to do,” Bucky said, unsure if he should make Steve take his hand off his ankle or leave it.

“I have a few ideas,” Steve said resignedly. The leather of his suit creaked as he sat up. He let go of Bucky’s ankle to cradle his head in his hands. “Hopefully I can avoid telling you about them.”

“Didn’t SHIELD have paperwork for this?” The airship came in to view, circling. Bucky pitched his voice louder to cut through the engine noise. “Look. Romanoff is here, she’ll know what to do. She can help. You like Romanoff.”

“I like you,” Steve said, rolling up onto his knees. He wrapped an arm around Bucky’s calves and looked up at him with those dark eyes, then leaned in to rub his cheek over Bucky’s rock-hard dick.

“Holy shit,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve by the hair with his good hand and pulling him back. Steve whined and shivered all over. Bucky bit his cheek. It was was 1938 all over again, listening to Steve jerk off under the covers next to him with his fist in his mouth.

“Maybe you better just knock me over the head,” Steve said, shuddering again.

The airship landed amidst the debris, sleek and silver and straight out of a science fiction book. The hatch slid open and Romanoff stepped out, her hair whipping glamorously in the backdraft. Bucky scraped his matted locks out of his eyes with his functioning hand. He had never been so happy to see someone who’d come so very close to killing him before.

“You need to tranq him,” Bucky said.

“Wouldn’t risk the drug interactions,” Widow said shortly. “Can you move him.” She had a way of asking questions like they were statements, in which the answer was usually the recipient of the question taking the action she wanted them to.

“Steve,” Bucky said. “Can you get up?”

“Sure,” Steve said, but he was moving slow. Bucky went to sling his arm over his good shoulder. Steve shied away.

“Better not,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Bucky said to him. He could do this. “Okay.”

“We’re leaving,” Widow said, her voice doubled in his ear and over the com. “Steve needs to get medical. Right now.”

“Hey, come on,” Hawkeye said. “Some of us can’t fly.”

“Guess you’ll have to hitch a ride,” Widow said, cracking a grin like she only ever did for Barton. "Have fun."

"Not it," Falcon said immediately.

“Looks like you'll have to make some new friends,” Widow said.

“Guaranteed to be better than you."

"No one is better than me," Widow said, and made an impatient gesture at Bucky.

"You’re such a bitch, Tasha,” Hawkeye said admiringly. “See you later.”

Steve stumbled up the ramp. Bucky kept a careful half meter in between them and herded him into the back of the ship, where there was a barebones medbay and a place to sit down.

“Scan him and secure him,” Widow said and disappeared. Steve dropped into a chair, a bucket seat in black leather with a zero-G web harness. Bucky rummaged in drawers until he found what he recognized as a med scanner. It told him nothing he didn’t know: pulse was high, respiration was high, temperature was high. It took a lot to get Steve’s heart rate up these days. He didn’t like to think of the strain it was under now.

“Hey, pal, you think you can relax a little for me?” Bucky asked.

“It’s kind of hard,” Steve said.

“I noticed,” Bucky said, then wanted to kick himself. Steve went bright red. Bucky coughed.

“Maybe I just need to sweat it out,” Steve said. He was squirming in his seat. “I’m going to hit the decontamination shower, see if I can… unless you have a better idea?”

“No,” Bucky said. “I don’t have a better — no. Yes. Go and — yes. Good luck?”

“Right,” Steve said, still bright red. He struggled up out of his chair and bolted into the shower, reaching for the zipper on his suit before he was even inside. Bucky saw a pale flash of shoulder before the door shut.

“Lord have mercy,” Bucky said. He put his back to the door and slid down it.

“What did you say?” Romanoff called. “Is he strapped down yet?”

“No,” Bucky said. He stared at the toe of his boot and did not think about whatever Steve was doing about two feet behind him behind a flimsy accordian door. Instead he thought about — baseball. Or something.

Steve moaned. Bucky covered his ear, but he could only do one at a time. “This is not mercy,” Bucky said to the ceiling. Steve moaned again. Enhanced hearing was fucking awful. “This is the opposite of mercy.”

The door rattled against his back. Bucky shot to his feet and speedwalked to the cockpit.

“He doing any better?” Romanoff said. “I’ve contacted T’Challa. They’re preparing a team.”

“He’s, uh, trying to work it out the old-fashioned way,” Bucky said. “How about I take the controls while you keep an eye on him?”

“Doesn’t sound like a hardship,” Romanoff said, smirking.

“Haha,” Bucky said. “You would think.”

“Sure,” she said, letting go of what passed for a steering wheel in Wakanda. “I could watch him.”

“Excellent,” Bucky said. “Thank you.”

“I just wonder, which one of us do you think Steve would rather let see him like this?”

“Romanoff,” Bucky said in warning.

“You don’t think he’ll be embarrassed if it’s me, do you?”

“You know what, nevermind,” Bucky said. “Never-fucking-mind. I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh,” Romanoff said. She hadn’t even unbuckled her belt.

“I hate you,” Bucky said, and turned tail. “Jesus. You’re the worst.”

“Put him in the harness when he gets out,” Romanoff said. “I hear this thing can break the sound barrier.”

The door to the decontamination show was folding back when Bucky got there. “Oh, thank god,” he said. Then he got a look at Steve. He was drenched in sweat, teeth marks in his lower lip, and — yep. Still hard.

“No good?” he asked, feeling a pang of sympathy. His own balls were beginning to ache. He couldn’t imagine what Steve’s felt like.

“It won’t work,” Steve said, eyes down. “I can’t…”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “That’s okay. Just a try, right? Why don’t you sit down and strap up and we’ll get the professionals on it.”

Steve wobbled bow-leggedly out of the shower and into his seat, but that was as far as he seemed able to go, unfocused and twitchy, fingers opening and closing on the nylon webbing.

Taking pity on him, Bucky pulled the buckle out of his big hands. The strap was hopelessly twisted. He leaned over Steve to straighten it and was drawn up short. Steve’s suit zipper was only done up halfway.

Bucky stared: pale skin and sharp trapezius, honed from the shield throwing. The furrow of his spine, disappearing into the shadows of his suit. A smattering of freckles.

“Mercy,” Bucky said.

“De rien?” Steve said. “But I didn’t do anything?”

Clueless. Bucky fortified himself, then reached out to pull up the zip, mostly for his own sake. Steve jumped at the first tug.

“Just going to zip you up,” Bucky said. He could smell Steve, sweat and leather and cheap Dial soap.

“Oh,” Steve said looking up at him, eyes hooded. “Thanks. You’re so nice.”

“Now, that one? That one I don’t get a lot,” Bucky said.

“You are though,” Steve sighed. “I wish you believed me.”

“One of these days,” Bucky said. “You’re very persuasive.”

“Aw, c’mere,” Steve said, and his hand closed around Bucky’s wrist, friendly. He tugged Bucky gently in between his legs and hooked his arm around his back in a hug.

“Oh,” Bucky said, stupidly. His hand was shaking. He could feel Steve’s erection on his thigh, and he couldn’t quite think of anything else. “I, uh…”

“You’re my best friend,” Steve said, and leaned his forehead against Bucky’s stomach. He ran his hand from the small of Bucky’s back to the top of his ass.

“You, too,” Bucky said, his voice cracking.

“Thanks,” Steve said, and pulled Bucky a little closer. He was getting dangerously close to getting a faceful of Bucky’s erection, so Bucky held his breath and tried to take a step back. Steve didn’t appear to notice, his big hand a benign, unrelenting shackle around Bucky’s wrist.

Bucky tugged again. Steve held on.

Bucky pulled harder. Steve’s grip tightened.

“Steve,” Bucky said.

Steve blinked up at him, eyes wide and dark, then rocked his hips against Bucky’s thigh. “Oh,” he said, sounding as stupid as Bucky had. Bucky did some hurried math: he only had one hand, and he wasn’t even willing to hit Steve with it.

“Steve,” Bucky said carefully. “Please let go of my arm.”

Steve’s eyes cleared.

“Oh my god,” he said, and shoved Bucky. “Oh my god,” Steve said again. He pressed his face to his knees and retched. Bucky stumbled away and braced his hands on his knees.

“I — for a second I almost — shit. I think I’m gonna puke. I’m sorry, Bucky, I know that doesn’t — but I am.”

His suit was still unzipped. Bucky straightened up and reached over.

Steve recoiled. “Stay away from me, I’ll do it,” he said, fumbling for the straps. He jammed the buckle closed, webbing knotted and twisted.

“No,” Bucky said firmly. Steve froze and hunched up in shame, staring at the floor. Bucky went to him. He unbuckled the strap and untangled it, zipped up the suit, then snapped him back in. He put his good hand on Steve’s shoulder. Bucky knew what it was like to see your body doing things you would never do, while you were trapped behind the eyes. 

“No,” he said, gentle. “You tell me all the time, it’s not your fault if you’re not driving. And you didn’t even do anything wrong.”

"Doesn't feel that way," Steve said to Bucky's feet. "I almost..."

"You didn't," Bucky said. The silence that followed held a note of finality. Steve was done talking. Bucky looked at his tense, unhappy posture. There was a sweet whirl of hair at the crown of his head. There was another one on the nape of his neck, Bucky knew. That one grew in the opposite direction.

“We good?”

Silence.

“Steve. Are you okay.”

Nothing.

“Report, soldier,” Bucky said. It was the phrase Steve used on him when he wouldn’t talk after the nightmares. There was no response. Bucky ached for him. “Rogers. If I have to answer, so do you. Report.”

“It hurts,” Steve said, quietly. He wouldn’t look at Bucky. “It hurts and I don’t want to hurt you and I’m embarrassed.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Bucky said, rubbing his back. Steve’s muscles were huge and ropey under his palm, knotted and fretful.

“I just want it to stop,” Steve said. The heat of him came straight through the thick fabric of the suit.

“I’m so sorry, Stevie. It’s gonna be okay.”

“You’re sorry?” Steve said, the muscles in his jaw clenching, his lashes fluttering. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t — I think maybe you should stop rubbing my back. What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re drugged,” Bucky said, and moved his hand in slow, firm circles. Steve kept saying pieces of things that Bucky couldn’t follow. I know you don’t. Don’t what?

“Bucky,” Steve said, his eyes falling closed, his lips parting. “If you don’t stop, I’m — I’m gonna —”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Steve said. The stitching in the fabric under his hands popped. “But I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I won’t if you won’t,” Bucky said.

“Never,” Steve said.

“Consider it a favor between friends,” Bucky said. He stroked the side of Steve’s neck. His chest hurt.

“Bucky,” Steve gasped, pressing his face into Bucky’s stomach.

Bucked cupped the back of his neck. “That’s it, Stevie,” he said roughly, smoothing his fingers through the soft bristles of his hairline, searching for the spot where the hair grain changed direction. There. He ran his fingernails over it. Steve convulsed against him with a broken moan. “Yeah, there you go, babe.”

“Buck,” Steve choked out, rigid.

“There you go,” Bucky said again, his toes curling and his eyes watering and he was coming, one hand in Steven G. Roger’s cowlick and Steven G. Rogers himself whimpering into his chest. He couldn’t help it, so he gritted his teeth and rode the wave, willing his hand not to clench on the back of Steve’s neck. Steve sobbed, and Bucky wondered if he could tell. “Easy,” Bucky said, and rubbed the soft spot behind Steve’s ear. Steve hiccuped and shuddered twice more against him.

Bucky held him through it, staring at him, at his red mouth and dark eyelashes, and despised himself. When Steve was done he lapsed into a doze, cheeks pink, chin tipped up. Bucky finished buckling him in and headed to the bathroom to clean up as best he could. It wasn’t very good. Damn it. Looked like he’d have to get it dry cleaned after all.

Then, because he had to, he went to the cockpit. Romanoff was in the pilot’s seat, the sun sparkling on the turquoise ocean and off her beautiful hair.

“ETA?” he asked. His head hurt. He was exhausted.

Romanoff took one look at him. “Seriously, Barnes?”

“He practically came on my leg when I touched his shoulder,” Bucky said miserably. “I didn’t mean to. Fuck. I’m a pervert.”

“Did you fuck him?” Romanoff asked neutrally, flicking a switch on the dash.

“No!”

“Did he try to fuck you?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, covering his eyes with his good hand. His skin felt gritty with soot. He needed a thousand showers.

“Did you want to?”

“This isn’t a sleepover,” Bucky snapped, annoyed that she was playing this game with him, like she didn’t know that he knew that she knew. “And I graduated high school a long time ago.”

“You never graduated high school, Barnes.”

“You know what I’m saying,” Bucky said.

“And you know what I’m saying,” Romanoff said, her eyes hidden behind mirrored pilot’s glasses. “You could have done worse.”

“I could have done better,” Bucky said. He slumped into the copilot’s seat.

“Buckle up and we’ll be there in fifteen,” she said. The nylon webbing was tacky under his sweaty fingers, and it took twice as long to do it with just one hand. Romanoff watched and didn’t help. When he clicked the final buckle, she entered a complicated sequence into the dash. The ship leapt forward.

The cockpit smelled of ozone and cordite. Bucky studied her out of the corner of his eye. The lower half of her suit had the matte blackness of scorched fabric, but Bucky knew better than to ask. She was favoring her right side, but still moving well.

“How was today?” she said abruptly. An unusally clumsy attempt to distract him.

“Hm, I don’t know,” he said, gesturing down at his pants, “fucking terrible?”

“I meant, how was the confrontation.”

“Oh. Mostly me,” Bucky said. “The Soldier was there for a while. When I was fighting.”

Romanoff shrugged and reached up to touch a button on the ceiling, patching into air control’s network. “Not a bad man to have around in a fight.”

“When you know he’s on your side,” Bucky said. He tapped the transparent material of the dash in front of him to bring up the map.

“Don’t even think about touching those controls,” Romanoff said. She turned her head to look at him. Bucky could see his own tired face, drawn and angry, reflected in the lenses. Beyond it was the watchful outline of her iris. “Not with that arm.”

“Yeah,” Bucky admitted, pulling the hand into his lap to relieve the pressure on his collarbone. “It’s bricked.”

“It hasn’t been the same since they unfroze you,” she said. “The new arm. Is it not as good?”

“It’s better. T’Challa’s people are the best,” Bucky said, frowning.

“They are the best,” Romanoff agreed. “But it’s not working.”

She turned back to the windscreen. Bucky turned, too. The tawny coast of Africa, massive and glorious, was coming up on the horizon, the delicate white lacework of breaking water around it, the green mountains in the distance. Africa was heartbreakingly beautiful. Bucky wished it was home.

“I don’t need a new arm,” he said.

“You need something,” Romanoff said. “And Steve needs a proper shield if he’s going to keep fighting like that, or he’s going to die.”

Bucky grimaced.

“He won’t let T’Challa make him one. I don’t know why. And I don’t need anything. What I have is fine. This is the most advanced tech in the world.”

“Advanced, yes. But unique. You had seventy years to get used to your old arm. You don’t need a new one. What you need is a better version of your old one. You don’t want the most advanced. You want something else. You want someone who’s familiar with the original and on the cutting edge of technology.”

And there he was, though he usually went unmentioned: the final entry on the list of things that had survived his left arm.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t want me,” Bucky said, and Romanoff didn’t argue.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently when I join a new fandom, I write some version of this fic. This is going to be a chaptered work. I update erratically. I'm sorry. But I will update, and I'll try never to leave on a cliffhanger. I just have a lot of feelings and thoughts about Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers and I don't have the time to write it all at once.


End file.
